Science News

June 03, 2010

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND (ASSOCIATED PRESS) – Some
South Pacific coral atolls have held their own or even grown
in size over the past 60 years despite rising sea levels, research
showed Thursday.

Some scientists worry that many of the tiny,
low-lying islands throughout the South Pacific will eventually disappear
under rising sea levels.

But two researchers who measured 27
islands where local sea levels have risen 4.8 inches (120 millimeters) —
an average of 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) a year — over the past 60
years, found just four had diminished in size.

The reason: Coral islands respond to changes in weather
patterns and climate, with coral debris eroded from encircling reefs
pushed up onto the islands' coasts by winds and waves.

Professor
Paul Kench of Auckland University's environment school and coastal
process expert Arthur Webb of the Fiji-based South Pacific Applied
Geoscience Commission, used historical aerial photographs and
high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land area of
the islands.

While four had gotten smaller, the other 23 had
either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research
published in the scientific journal Global and Planetary Change.

The
shape-shifting islands changed their size through what the pair
describe as ocean shoreline displacement toward their lagoons, lagoon
shoreline growth or extensions to the ends of elongated islands.

Kench
said it had been assumed that islands would "sit there and drown" as
sea levels rise. But as the sea rises, the islands respond.

"They're
not all growing, they're changing. They've always changed ... but the
consistency (with which) some of them have grown is a little
surprising," he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Tuvalu, a
coral island group that climate change campaigners
have repeatedly predicted will be drowned by rising seas, has its
highest point just 14 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level. The
researchers found seven of its nine islands had grown by more than 3
percent on average over the past 60 years.

In 1972, Cyclone Bebe
dumped 346 acres (140 hectares) of sediment on the eastern reef of
Tuvalu, increasing the area of Funafuti, the main island, by 10 percent. Another island,
Funamanu, gained 1.1 acres (0.44 hectares) or nearly 30 percent of its
previous area.

A similar trend was found in Kiribati, where three
main islands also "grew." Betio expanded by 30
percent (89 acres or 36 hectares), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (14 acres or
5.8 hectares), and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (2 acres, or 0.8 hectares).

On World Environment Day in 2008, Kiribati President Anote Tong warned parts of
his island nation were already being submerged, forcing some of
Kiribati's 94,000 people living in shoreline village communities to be
relocated from century-old sites.

Worst case scenarios showed
Kiribati would disappear into the sea within a century, he said at the
time.

But Kench said the study shows the islands are coping with
sea-level change, with higher waves and water depth supplying sand and
gravel from coral reefs.

"In other words, they (the
islands) are slowly moving ... migrating across their reef platforms,"
he said. "As the sea-level conditions and wave conditions are changing,
the islands are adjusting to that."

But he warned an
accelerated rate of sea-level rise could be "the critical environmental
threat to the small island nations," with "a very rapid rate of island
destruction" possible from a water depth beyond a certain threshold. That
threshold is unknown.

Australian sea level oceanographer John
Hunter said the findings "are good news and not a surprise."

"Coral
islands can keep up with some sea-level rise, but (there's also) ocean
warming ... and ocean acidification ... that are certainly problematic
for the corals. Sea-level rise can actually make the islands grow — as
it apparently is doing," said Hunter, who did not participate in the
study.

While coral might adjust to ocean warming, ocean
acidification "will probably be the death knell of the coral reefs,"
leaving coastal management by humans as the only way of retaining and
rebuilding atolls, said Hunter, a researcher at the University of
Tasmania's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research
Center.

Commenting on the findings, New Scientist magazine noted,
"Erosion of island shorelines must be reconsidered in the context of
physical adjustments of the entire island shoreline, as erosion may be
balanced by progradation on other sectors of shorelines."

November 12, 2009

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - The European Space Agency (ESA) has a mission to land on
a comet for the first time in human history. And, the mission is resulting in
stunning photos like this one.

The mission involves a craft, called the Rosetta, which is nearing earth as
it readies for a "swing-by". The swing-by will involve getting close enough to
earth to use the gravitational pull of our planet to slingshot the Rosetta
farther into space. The closest approach will happen early Friday morning, at
12:45AM MST.

The photo from the ESA and Rosetta shows an illuminated crescent earth.

The gallery will open the exhibit with a reception at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Temple Gallery at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 South Scott Ave., Tucson.

The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began taking high-resolution, detailed images of the spectacular Martian surface in November 2006. Each full image from HiRISE covers a strip of Martian ground 3.7 miles wide and about two to four times that long, showing details as small as one yard across.

HiRISE, led by UA professor Alfred McEwen, has returned more data about the planet than all other past and current missions to Mars combined.

One of HiRISE's significant contributions was to take images used to select a safe and scientifically promising landing site for the Phoenix Mars Mission.

The Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed in the Martian northern plains on May 25, 2008, and lasted two months beyond its planned three-months mission.

Led by Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, Phoenix returned more than 30,000 images. It took 29,799 images that provided panoramic views of the landing site and weather information with its Surface Stereo Imager. It took 2,322 images with its Robotic Arm Camera. Phoenix even took views down to the atomic level with the first atomic force microscope ever used beyond Earth.

The prints on display range in size from 24 by 40 inches and 36 by 24 inches to three x six feet. The images were chosen to show a diversity of interesting landscapes and because "they are just plain gorgeous," Spinoza said.

"Our idea was to show two different Mars missions with very different goals but coming together in an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime shot of one spacecraft taking a picture of the other," he added.

HiRISE and Phoenix made history on May 25, 2008, just before the lander touched down. The HiRISE camera captured Phoenix hanging from its parachute during its descent through Mars' atmosphere. It was the first time – and still only time – that a spacecraft actually imaged the descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body.

April 08, 2009

I stumbled across this website on Twitter. Check out Gorilla Design. They take old shipping containers and turn them into beautiful, high end, modern homes that are they claim are more efficient and longer lasting than traditional wood frame homes. Pretty cool stuff they are working on. - First Alert Meteorologist Erin Jordan

Also follow weather alerts on Twitter...ErinJordanKOLD. Chuck and Aaron are on there too!

August 26, 2008

The next sample of Martian soil being grabbed for analysis is coming from a trench about three times deeper than any other trench the Phoenix Mars Lander has dug.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, the spacecraft will finish the 90 Martian days (or "sols") originally planned as its primary mission and will continue into a mission extension through September, as announced by NASA in July. Phoenix landed on May 25.

"As we near what we originally expected to be the full length of the mission, we are all thrilled with how well the mission is going," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Phoenix's main task for Sol 90 is to scoop up a sample of soil from the bottom of a trench called "Stone Soup," which is about 18 centimeters, or 7 inches deep. On a later sol, the lander's robotic arm will sprinkle soil from the sample into the third cell of the wet chemistry laboratory. This deck-mounted laboratory, part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, has previously used two of its four soil-testing cells.

"In the first two cells we analyzed samples from the surface and the ice interface, and the results look similar. Our objective for Cell 3 is to use it as an exploratory cell to look at something that might be different," said JPL's Michael Hecht, lead scientist for MECA. "The appeal of Stone Soup is that this deep area may collect and concentrate different kinds of materials."

Stone Soup lies on the borderline, or natural trough, between two of the low, polygon-shaped hummocks that characterize the arctic plain where Phoenix landed. The trench is toward the left, or west, end of the robotic arm's work area on the north side of the lander.

When digging near a polygon center, Phoenix has hit a layer of icy soil, as hard as concrete, about 5 centimeters, or 2 inches, beneath the ground surface. In the Stone Soup trench at a polygon margin, the digging has not yet hit an icy layer like that.

"The trough between polygons is sort of a trap where things can accumulate," Hecht said. "Over a long timescale, there may even be circulation of material sinking at the margins and rising at the center."

The science team had considered two finalist sites as sources for the next sample to be delivered to the wet chemistry lab. This past weekend, Stone Soup won out. "We had a shootout between Stone Soup and white stuff in a trench called 'Upper Cupboard,'" Hecht said. "If we had been able to confirm that the white material was a salt-rich deposit, we would have analyzed that, but we were unable to confirm that with various methods."

Both candidates for the sampling location offered a chance to gain more information about salt distribution in the Phoenix work area, which could be an indicator of whether or not liquid water has been present. Salt would concentrate in places that may have been wet.

While proceeding toward delivery of a sample from Stone Soup into the wet chemistry laboratory, Phoenix is also using its Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer to examine a soil sample collected last week from another trench, at a depth intermediate between the surface and the hard, icy layer.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith from The University of Arizona with project management at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

May 07, 2008

Some of you may have heard about the Newseum in Washington D.C., maybe even visited there on a trip to the east coast. You can experience how the news it put together, from print to radio to television, at this interactive museum. Now Buffalo, New York is hoping to build a Weather Experience Center. Right now this state-of-the art interactive museum is in the planning stages but it could become a reality within the next decade. (Hopefully earlier rather than later!) No amusement-like rides in the museum. The goal is to engage people in how weather affects our lives and how we affect weather and our surrounding environment. - First Alert Meteorologist Erin Jordan

March 24, 2008

Each year around this time, John Tripp walks across a lunar surface, pondering the challenges ahead for explorers brave enough to take on its cratered terrain.

For now, his "moon" is a winding ribbon of cement footpaths looped around Huntsville's famed U.S. Space and Rocket Center, where Tripp is a construction foreman.

By month's end, a half-mile of the paths will be transformed into a harsh lunar landscape that will test the engineering savvy and physical endurance of about 400 high school and college students on 68 teams. They're converging here April 4-5 for NASA's 15th annual Great Moonbuggy Race, organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

The students, hailing from 20 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, India and Germany, will race lightweight moonbuggies they designed, based on the original lunar rover first used during the Apollo 15 moon mission in 1971. Tripp's construction team will greet them with 17 unique course obstacles, built of plywood and old tires, and covered with 20 tons of gravel and 5 tons of sand. All of it will be reshaped into moon-like ridges, craters, basins and lava-etched "rilles."

The course was designed in 1993 by Dr. Larry Taylor, a lunar geologist at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Dr. J.M. Wersinger, a physics professor at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala., and the Marshall Center's Dr. Frank Six, now the university affairs officer supporting the race.

The course proved so challenging, race planners have added more and more hay bales to the route each year for added safety. Some 175 bales will line the course this year.

Even so, "seatbelts are not optional," Tripp chuckled. "They're a requirement."

The students appear ready for the challenge. For two days, their vehicles will brave the course against the backdrop of some of America's most famous rockets and space vehicles. Cheered on by hundreds of friends and spectators, they'll vie for cash prizes and trophies awarded by NASA and corporate sponsors. Each moonbuggy starts the competition disassembled and folded for transport -- like the actual rovers flown to the moon in the early 1970s. Each buggy must fit into a space no larger than 4 feet in width, height and length. It must be carried in "collapsed" mode to the starting line, assembled, then checked for all required parts -- fenders, a flag and simulated hardware, including batteries, a communications antenna, radio and TV camera.

Then, they're off. Each rover is piloted by two students: one male, one female. The buggies race against the clock instead of each other. Drivers push hard to conquer each obstacle without exceeding the race's 15-minute time limit -- a new rule in 2008.

Tripp keeps the moonbuggy course safe, but tough. As the person in charge of the course for the past 13 years, he's made a science of getting the right blend of sand and rock, and building the right combinations of steep and shallow features. He has to stay sharp, he said, because student builders grow ever more sophisticated, refining their designs from year to year to field sturdier buggies. The schools also consult with each another. Veterans compare concepts and give new teams free insight.

"That camaraderie is exciting to see," said Tammy Rowan, manager of Marshall's Academic Affairs Office, which organizes the race each year. It's just one of dozens of educational programs and initiatives led by the center, to help attract and inspire America's next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers -- those who will carry on the nation's mission of exploration, to the moon and onward into the solar system.

"NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race doesn't just pit schools against one another," Rowan said. "It's a shared experience for students who love math, science and engineering. We hope it shows them the community and partnership that awaits them in these career fields, and provides practical, hands-on experience to reinforce their class work."

Tripp admits he enjoys making the experience as "practical and hands-on" as possible. His course never fails to keep the pit crews in NASA's repairs tent busy on race day -- welding snapped struts, and replacing bent wheels and sprockets.

But most teams push through, and Tripp likes that too. "Some of them reach the end and just fall over exhausted," Tripp said. "But they get there. That's what it's all about."

February 08, 2008

As I turned on my car radio this morning, the first words on the BBC program I always listen to on my way to work were "University of Arizona". What a surprise! I had seen a blurb about a 3-D holographic breakthrough at the UA a few days ago but I didn't have time to really delve into the whole story. After listening to the BBC interview with a UA professor about that very subject, I just had to know more! So I looked up the story from U of A and was amazed at the technological advances going on right here in Tucson. Click here to check it out and there is even a video example. - First Alert Meteorologist Erin Jordan